The Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, signed by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye, states that "an armed attack on any one of the three states will be regarded as an attack on all three." This appears to be an extension of a similar agreement (SMDA) signed between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in 2025. Turkish Defence Minister Hakan Fidan has hinted that Egypt is a potential candidate to join, alongside other nations.

The agreement brings long-awaited unity among Muslim states to the fore. Combining Saudi Arabia's energy wealth, financial prowess and leadership in the Arab world; Türkiye's conventional military power, defence industry and NATO membership; and Pakistan's nuclear capabilities and military superiority in South Asia creates a regional strategic umbrella that can gradually bring other regional allies under its protection. Adding Egypt - the Arab world's largest conventional military establishment, which controls the Suez Corridor - extends this bloc extra-continentally, paving the way for the North African Muslim belt to join a coalition that truly operates as a 'collective security provider' from MENA to South Asia.

This dream is not new though. In 2015, Saudi Arabia formed an Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition with 41 states, under Gen (retd) Raheel Sharif, but it didn't work out. This time, the move appears more systematic and pragmatic, made possible by the China-backed Saudi-Iran rapprochement in 2023 and solidified by the recent Iran War.

The flawed pretext that this agreement is specifically meant to counter the threat of an Iranian attack on Saudi soil has been dismantled by Esmaeil Baghaei's remarks that "Tehran sees no reason to believe........

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